


The Other Half of My Heart

by DreamsOfSleep



Category: New Girl
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Exes, F/M, New Orleans, Summer Vacation, Vacation, old flame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-26
Updated: 2018-07-20
Packaged: 2018-10-10 21:45:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10448235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamsOfSleep/pseuds/DreamsOfSleep
Summary: AU: After Nick leaves for New Orleans, Jess chases after him.





	1. If You Love Him, Set Him Free

**Author's Note:**

> Fic title is a reference to the John Mayer song ["Half of My Heart."](https://youtu.be/0vrlwu_2s2E)

She hadn’t told him how she felt. 

She looked at how deliriously happy Nick was at the idea of Reagan, at the idea of becoming someone new. So what if she still had feelings for him? Why hadn’t she realized it before? He had been here the whole time. Wasn’t it convenient for her to suddenly realize she wanted him when some other woman wanted him too? Maybe she didn’t love him at all. She just wanted him because Reagan wanted him. He had always been _her_ Nick and now he wasn’t hers anymore but Reagan’s Nick. It felt real to her, but it had felt real then too. 

She was being selfish, yanking him around again when he was finally getting his life together. He had been with other women after they had been together, but it had always been casual. _Just dating, just sex._ People he would never talk about feelings with, never share the secret parts of himself with, not like he did with her. But this time was different. She could tell. He was serious this time, serious for the first time in years about starting a real relationship with someone else, someone that wasn’t her. Reagan was the first woman after her who had really grabbed his attention and made him want to try like he used to try for her.

 _What was she going to do when Nick got his first real girlfriend after her?_ It wasn’t a question she had really thought about in all the time after they had broken up. Nick was just always there. He would date and sleep around but he would always come home to her at the end of the day, at the end of every relationship. In the back of her mind, she must have liked that, liked knowing no other woman got to fill that space in Nick’s life but her, even though they weren’t in a relationship together anymore. She took it for granted that Nick would always be there, a permanent fixture in her life.

Had she hurt him when she went off with other guys after him? She must have, but he never said anything to her about it. He was always sweet and supportive, never let on if it did, kept his distance, gave her space to find someone new.

Maybe they didn’t really belong together after all. They had tried that already and they both agreed that “just friends” was better for them, even though they hadn’t really been friends after. It was always different after. It was like they were still trying to hold on to each other when they both should have moved on. He was Nick and he was fragile. She had broken him and he had found a way to glue himself back together again, to crawl out of his shell and finally venture out into the world to find someone new.

Doubts swirled in her mind. She wasn’t being fair to him. And she knew if she wasn’t 100% certain, wasn’t 100% ‘all in,’ she couldn’t tell him. So she swallowed her feelings and let him go. 


	2. Long Distance (Wish You Were Here)

Everyone is gone from the loft but her. She’s happy that all of her friends are happy, but she can’t lie and say she isn’t lonely. Schmidt and Cece call her from Bali to check in when they arrive. She imagines them happy, tan, and in love lying tangled up together on the beach with the surf crashing against the shore. Winston has been MIA for a while. She thinks he might have gone to DC to surprise Aly at her FBI training retreat. The last time she saw him he was giggling to himself and had Furguson tucked under his arm while he was wheeling a suitcase out of the loft shortly after Schmidt and Cece left on their honeymoon. He calls her a few days later and tells her “Mission accomplished!” She can hear Schmidt and Cece in the background yelling about Prank Sinatra. She doesn’t know what that’s all about but she’s sure she’ll hear all about it when they all get home. She kind of wished Winston had invited her into his messaround too but she tries to look on the bright side. She has the entire loft to herself and that’s never happened before. She can do whatever she wants and this will be The Summer of Jess.

Nick doesn’t call her. She imagines him gallivanting around New Orleans with Reagan being all couple-y together and it makes her heart hurt. She wants to call him but she doesn’t want to interfere in his romantic getaway. She tries to convince herself that this space is good for the both of them and ignores the painful twist deep in her gut every time she passes by his empty room.

\---

A few weeks later she gets a call from Nick out of the blue in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon.

“Hey, Jess. What are you up to?” 

What has she been up to? _Sleeping until noon and wearing pajamas all day. Going to the movies by herself. Going to karaoke at night and belting out showtunes to a room full of strangers. Learning to be alone._

Currently, she has flashcards fanned out on her bed, half-heartedly trying to learn Portuguese for that summer class she signed up for on a whim. Certainly nothing she has done this summer has been as glamorous as being whisked away to some exotic destination for a summer of romance. She thought she had been doing really well this summer getting back in touch with herself, but suddenly it all seems to pale in comparison to that imaginary summer she has created for him in her head. She tries to think of some cool interesting lie she can tell him that doesn’t make her sound pathetic but her mind draws a blank. “Nothing,” she blurts out. She curses herself for not being more prepared. 

“What are you doing?” She tries to keep her tone light and casual, but braces herself for the inevitable. He’s probably going to tell her a whole bunch of fun stories and about all the memories he’s making with Reagan and he’s going to think she spent the entire summer stuffing her face with junk food watching _Dirty Dancing_ and crying her eyes out over Sam.

She hears him exhale out on the other end of the line. “Nothing. Being bored in this hotel room…Hey, we’re twins.” She can hear the smile in his voice. He chuckles to himself. “You know, I must have grown up because I used to be the master of doing nothing. Now I’m thousands of miles from home in an amazing city and I’m more bored than all those summers I just spent vegging out in the loft when I was too broke to go anywhere or do anything.”

“Where’s Reagan?”

“Working…I really didn’t plan this out well. I thought we would get to spend all this time together but she’s always working. Classic Nick Miller, right? I can’t even go on vacation right. She did tell me that this was a work trip but I guess I didn’t really think about what that meant when I told her I would come with her.”

“Why don’t you go out and see the city? I bet there are a ton of things to do there, even if you are by yourself.”

“Tried that. It’s not as much fun when you’re by yourself. It’s fun for maybe the first week, but then you just end up back at the hotel. I feel like I’ve done everything already.”

“Did you unpack yet? Look at the bottom of your suitcase.”

“Hang on…” 

She can hear him shuffling around. She knew he wouldn’t unpack right away because it took them forever to tetris everything in there. She had snuck a small care package into his luggage when he wasn’t looking, a nice surprise hidden for him beneath his favorite hoodie when he finally got around to fully unpacking. _A New Orleans guidebook with a handwritten list of cool, obscure things for him to check out. Stephen King’s "On Writing" and a journal in case he wanted to get some writing done while he was down there. A book of brain teasers. Some odds and ends from LA in case he got homesick: a mini turtle keychain from the LA Zoo, those weird gummi sharks from the hardware store he likes, a box of her assorted homemade cookies, a small photo album with a collection of photos of all of them in the loft._

“Thanks, doll. You didn’t have to do that.” He sounds sincerely touched. He takes a brief pause and then he says quietly, “I wish you were here.”

Before she can dig into the layers of meaning she thinks she hears in that, she hears a commotion in the background over the phone. Someone at his door on his side of the world. “I have to go, Jess. You should go out and do something fun too. Don’t spend the entire summer in your room like me. I’ll talk to you later.”

She feels the painful flutter in her chest. _He wishes she were there._ She tries not to read too much into it. He probably called Schmidt and Winston and said the same thing to them too. Maybe even Cece. It’s something lots of people say to their friends when they go on vacation, a flip turn of phrase people say just because it sounds nice. Nick hasn’t really been _alone_ alone in over a decade. It was probably just a moment of weakness that made him say that, a brief pang of homesickness during one of the down times when Reagan wasn’t around and there wasn’t anything good on TV to occupy his mind. But she can’t help that those words keep replaying over and over in her head for days.

\---

Maybe she goes to the library and researches New Orleans under the guise of “just browsing.” So what if all those travel guides just happened to end up in her stack of books? It’s interesting. Learning about other places is interesting. She’s a history geek and it’s just coincidence that this is the summer she decided to get really into Creole history. Her best friend is in New Orleans so it’s only natural she would be curious about what that city is like. 

She finds herself researching ticket prices for one-way trips from LA to New Orleans when she is lying in bed late at night unable to sleep. She makes up fake itineraries for herself like she used to do in high school, imagining herself all grown up and taking all those trips to exotic destinations. The only problem is now she’s an adult with disposable income and the itineraries start feeling increasingly real like she’s planning an actual trip to New Orleans. But that would be insane wouldn’t it? 

And she knows it’s really, spectacularly dumb, but after a few glasses of pink wine late at night she finds herself giving into temptation and buying a plane ticket to New Orleans to see him.


	3. Paradise Nick and Paradise Jess, Reunited

She doesn’t think about the implications, she just follows her checklist. 

_Hotel room. Check._  
_Bags packed. Check._  
_Boarding pass. Check._  
_Taxi to the airport. Check._  


The checklist is in control of her life from the moment she books the ticket until her feet touch down in New Orleans.

===

Before she knows it she’s standing in front of Nick’s hotel room. She almost runs. She gets an image of herself sneaking back down to the hotel lobby and flagging down a cab to take her back to the airport and buying herself a ticket to fly home. Nick would never have to know she was here. Her feet shift indecisively between the desire to stay and the desire to go. But then she hears his voice in her head again, _I wish you were here,_ and it keeps her at his door. That small thread tying them together compels her to knock. The door opens and she finds herself face to face with him.

He looks good. _Really_ good. _Too_ good. He's all tan and it looks like he's been working out, lifting weights or something, because he's all muscle-y now. She tries not to stand there open-mouthed and gawking at him. He's both Nick and Not-Nick. It freaks her out a little bit. _He looks like this after a month with her._ She thinks Nick and Reagan are probably really great for each other in the way she and Nick weren’t.

"Hi," she says shyly. His face is definitely surprised to see her here. For a long minute, both of them stand there frozen in the doorway just staring at each other. 

He's not saying anything back to her. Her mouth goes dry and she feels the prickle of sweat starting to form along her back. She feels that deep twisting in her gut that has become so familiar to her over the summer, her heart going jackrabbit fast trying to escape her chest. Her mind is trying to stop itself from having to confront the devastating reality that this was a huge mistake to come here, to just show up on his doorstep without an invitation or the slightest warning, in a way she didn’t allow herself to think about on the plane. But then a smile lights up his face and she realizes he’s actually happy to see her. 

“Jess! What are you doing here?” 

Yes, what _is_ she doing here? “I just happened to be in town, y’know…” she jokes weakly.

He’s looking past her and she realizes he’s looking for Schmidt and Cece and Winston because of course it would be insane for her to travel here all by herself. 

“It’s just me,” she says quietly. 

Nothing changes in his face. He just accepts it like it isn’t strange at all that she just dropped everything to travel thousands of miles to show up on his romantic getaway.

He pulls her into a bear hug. “Aw, man…I missed ya, kid.”

“Homesick?”

“You have no idea…” He’s pulling her into his hotel room. “Talk to me, Jess. Tell me all the gossip. It feels like I haven’t seen you in forever.”

\---

It’s a good thing Nick is feeling chatty today so she can just listen. She casually evades talking about herself so she doesn't have to feel pathetic telling him about her boring, uneventful summer spent alone in the loft. She lets herself get swept up in the raspy warmth of his voice. He's a good storyteller; she always thought so. She's just watching him be the animated engaging version of himself that he lets himself be when he's truly content and happy. _He’s Paradise Nick right now who is the life of every party._

She does a double-take when he tells her he gets up every morning at 5AM to run now. He shrugs and says it’s pretty much the only time he gets to spend with Reagan all week when she's working. _That’s why he looks so good, all tan and fit._ He’s new and improved Nick Miller without the cookie pouch. She kind of liked how he was all soft back then though, like a big teddy bear. Now he’s all angular like he’s in 2D from some angles. Better, she supposes, but not her Nick, not anymore anyway. She tries not to, but she can’t help wondering if he is happier here than he was being Paradise Nick with her in Mexico.

He tells her he’s been watching a lot of Food Network and how Alton Brown is his homeboy now. He’s been practicing cooking in the makeshift kitchen, even though it’s kind of tricky to do with just the hot plate. At lunchtime he makes her an omelet and she can’t help finding it adorable how proud he is to show her. It’s actually pretty good, a long way from the breakfasts he used to bring her in bed. She gets a flash of him standing on the rooftop of the loft presenting her with a romantic breakfast for two at midnight the night after their first time together. The green-eyed monster inside her briefly rears its ugly head as she imagines him making Reagan breakfast every morning before she leaves for work, the very picture of the adoring, doting boyfriend like he used to be for her. She shoves all the memories and those ugly feelings down. That’s all in the past and it’s a dangerous direction for her mind to go in. She’s just here as his friend.

\---

Loose pieces of paper are scattered all around the hotel room with his messy scrawl on them. She holds one up. “What are these?”

“Oh!” He lights up. “I can’t believe I forgot to tell you about that. That’s Pepperwood.” 

“Pepperwood, The Zombie Detective: Part 2?” she teases him. "Z is for Zombie: The Sequel?"

He pulls a face at that. “Ugh. Don’t remind me about that, Jess. That was truly, genuinely awful. I think this one could actually be really good. I just have a really good feeling about this one.”

He shows her all the plots he has outlined on hotel stationary and all his notes on locations he wants to check out in the city. He has an entire novel's worth of ideas. It’s an ambitious undertaking but she can see how Nick is both nervous and excited to see if he can make this work. She can see how he's really serious this time. Nick in Serious Writer Mode is a sight to behold. When he really commits himself to something, it brings out the quiet conviction of confidence that he has hidden deep within himself. She hasn't seen it for a long time. Maybe he had to get away from his life in the loft and fall in love with someone else to be able to find it again. Maybe this is where he had always belonged.

\---

It’s a really nice day outside so Nick starts feeling antsy staying inside the hotel room after a while and he takes her out to see the city.

She helps him buy a laptop at a local electronics store so he doesn’t have to write everything out by hand and he can save all his notes in one place. She steers him away from buying the heaviest one.

“Isn’t the heaviest one the best one?” _Nick logic._ He's always been so adorably clueless about technology.

“You really want to carry that thing around with you? It’s like carrying a small elephant.”

“It makes a good metaphor. Writers need to suffer for their art.” But he shrugs and gets the nice lightweight laptop she picks out for him because Jess knows best about these things.

\---

They spend the rest of the afternoon location scouting in New Orleans for his book and she can’t help wistfully remembering how they used to be together as a couple. He's got that soft affection in his eyes for her like he did then. When he turns to smile at her, his mouth quirks up at the edges in that genuine way that makes the corners of his eyes crinkle up. Their hands keep grazing each other since they have been walking close to each other and she remembers the feel of his hand around hers when she was still his, the sure and steady comfort of him holding her close. He keeps touching her when he's talking in a wonderfully distracting way, his hand going to the small of her back from force of habit while they are walking down the street. 

She scolds herself for daydreaming this way. She digs her nails into her palms to remind herself that they aren’t a couple anymore. _He’s with Reagan now, Jess. You’re not a homewrecker._ She subtly puts space in between them and tries to keep him at a friendly distance without being too obvious about it.

\---

They’re walking in the Garden District looking at historic mansions. Nick is mid-sentence explaining how Pepperwood has to go undercover to infiltrate one of the fancy soirees taking place inside one of these mansions to gather evidence on that corrupt DA when his phone sounds and he takes it out of his pocket and looks down at it absentmindedly. 

“Shit…I lost track of time. I forgot that I was supposed to meet Reagan for dinner.”

Jess is a little disappointed that they don’t get to hang out anymore tonight but she knows she’s pushing the boundary of their friendship already by even being here. Plus, she’s still here for the whole rest of the week so she’ll still be able to see him tomorrow. “Well…have fun with Reagan, Nick. I'm just going to head back to my hotel room. I still need to unpack. I'll probably just grab some room service and turn in early.”

“What, Jess?” he says in confusion. “Nah, come with me. Come have dinner with us.”

She hesitates. “It’s not going to be weird? Reagan doesn’t even know I’m here. I don’t want to crash your date night.”

“Reagan’s cool. She’ll get it. You just got here, Jess. I can’t have you sitting alone in your hotel room all night eating overpriced room service by yourself.”

\---

It doesn’t take much convincing so she soon finds herself sitting in between Nick, her ex-boyfriend, and Reagan, her ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend, in a booth clearly designed for two people at an upscale Creole restaurant.

Reagan didn’t look upset to see her here when she and Nick arrived at the restaurant. She mainly looked confused but she recovered quickly. She has been the very picture of Miss Manners, welcoming and gracious. Or as welcoming and gracious as one would expect someone to be after having an unexpected dinner guest crash her romantic date. 

Nick seems entirely oblivious to the general mood at the table. He doesn’t seem to realize how weird this is at all. He’s telling Reagan about their day and that devolves into him telling her a bunch of stories about them, the friendship stories anyway and not the couple stories, although weirdly they all start to sound like couple stories after a while. He tells Reagan about how they met and how he rescued her from a bad date by singing to her in the middle of a restaurant, about Thanksgivings gone awry and Christmases with missed flights and about lighting up an entire street for her. He tells her about all the writing he's getting done on his new Pepperwood novel and the insane way he came up with the idea of Pepperwood in the first place. 

She doesn’t know why Nick is feeling nostalgic all of a sudden. She thinks it’s just because he’s been homesick in a new city. It feels nice to relive these parts of their history, especially since they haven’t really hung out in forever, but she feels bad for Reagan. It kind of feels like she and Nick are the couple and Reagan is the odd one out. She and Nick have an entire history together that he and Reagan don’t, all the memories and in-jokes tying them together that Nick and Reagan have yet to create. Reagan takes it all in good stride. She’s trying to be polite but Jess can see her smile is a bit strained at the edges. It’s awkward the way it is when two people know each other really well and you’re the one that’s sitting outside of their world.

===

She hangs out with Nick the rest of the week while Reagan is working but avoids going out to dinner with the two of them again. It seems fair to let them have their private couple time. 

Reagan finally gets some time off and she thinks it’s time for her to head home since Nick has been spending all his time with her instead of with Reagan. She knows he’s going to invite her on all their couple outings so she doesn’t feel left out. She doesn’t want to stick around and watch them be all lovey-dovey together and she doesn’t want to be the third wheel while their relationship is still brand new and he and Reagan are still trying to figure each other out. 

But when she tells Nick she’s going home soon, he looks really sad. She thinks he must still be a little homesick and he’s thinking about being alone and not having anybody to hang out with after she’s gone and Reagan has to go back to work so she decides to stay a little while longer. She has to give up her fancy room in Nick and Reagan's ritzy hotel and book a room in a crappy budget motel instead since she didn’t plan on staying this long and she’s trying to make her money stretch a little further than she had originally planned. She doesn’t want Nick to worry so she just tells him that she wanted to find a place with a “more authentic New Orleans experience.” Nick looks skeptical about that though and always goes home with her at night to make sure she gets there safely. 


	4. Nothing Good Happens After 2 AM

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is a reference to _How I Met Your Mother._

A few nights later, Jess is woken up by the sound of knocking on her door. She glances over at the clock on her nightstand. 2 AM. _Odd._ Despite all her reassurances to Nick, she knows this motel isn’t in a great neighborhood, so she hopes this isn’t someone looking for trouble. She puts on her hotel robe and cautiously peers out through the peephole into the hallway. She’s surprised to find Nick on the other side. She opens her door to let him in. 

He stands in the doorway uncertainly, wringing his hands together. 

“What’s wrong, Nick? Did something happen?”

“I had a fight with Reagan.”

She can tell he’s still upset about it. She can see all the tension he’s holding in his jaw and in his shoulders, feel the anxious energy coming off of him. It’s a stark contrast to how he was just a few short hours ago when she last saw him. He must not have been thinking straight because he’s in his pajamas. He’s slightly sweaty and out of breath, so he must have just walked all the way across the city in the middle of the night to reach her. It’s a miracle he didn’t get mugged or stabbed.

She lays a comforting hand on his shoulder. He’s looking at her standing in the doorway in just her hotel robe, and she sees something pass through his eyes, and that seems to wake him up a bit. “I’m sorry I woke you up like this, Jess…I don’t know why I’m here.”

He turns to leave, but she tightens her grip on his arm, and he turns back towards her again. “It’s okay, Nick. You can always wake me up if you need somewhere to go. Do you want to stay for a little while?”

“I don’t really want to talk about it though, Jess.”

“We don’t have to talk about it. You can just stay for a little while.”

She can see him fighting the impulse to stay and the impulse to go, and he looks so miserable and beaten down that she can’t help wrapping her arms around him for a hug. After briefly hesitating, his arms go around her too. His hands clutch at her back. He takes a deep breath in. Then out again. 

“Okay,” he says quietly, giving in. 

\---

She keeps true to her word and doesn’t pry and make him talk about his fight with Reagan. They end up sitting on her bed and watching bad late-night infomercials together instead. She mutes the volume and pretends she is the people in the infomercials, making up melodramatic reasons for why they're hilariously bad at normal everyday tasks. Nick doesn’t join in and provide color commentary like he usually does when they’re at home, but when she looks over at him, he gives her a weak half-smile in return. When the hypnotic drone of the infomercials convinces her that she totally needs that complete set of Coin Bears with the state quarters in their paws, she glances back over at him to see he’s fallen asleep sitting up against the headboard next to her. 

She knows she should wake him up so he can go back to his hotel room—Reagan is probably worried sick waiting up for him—but he just looks so peaceful sleeping there next to her that she doesn’t want to wake him up so he can go walking about the empty streets in the middle of the night if he’s still upset over his fight with Reagan. He’s safe here with her. 

She leans her head against the headboard and watches him sleep. She can’t remember the last time she got to see him this close-up in such an intimate way. He’s so close yet so far away from her. She wants to reach out to touch his face, to trace his features with her hand. She feels the urge to kiss him, to press a kiss to his cheek the way she used to. He always used to wrap his arms around her to bring her close to him whenever she did that, even when he was sleeping. She knows she can’t though because he belongs to someone else. And she knows she shouldn’t, but she settles for placing her hand over his. She looks at their hands together on the bed. She can almost imagine them together again.

Nick stirs slightly, and she pulls her hand back and moves away from him, but he doesn’t wake up. After a while, she covers him with a blanket, and then curls up away from him on her side of the bed to go to sleep.

\---

A comforting, familiar warmth along her back wakes her up a few hours later. She realizes that Nick is spooning her to him like the way he used to do when they were a couple. She knows he isn’t doing it on purpose; Sleeping Nick is just a cuddler. It’s entirely innocent, but she knows it’s dangerous. She tries to move away from him to put space in between them, but he makes a disgruntled noise and pulls her more tightly to him. She pretends it doesn’t count. She closes her eyes and imagines they are back home in her bed again, back to when they were a couple, when he was still hers. She lets herself get pulled back into slumber nestled within the comfort of his embrace.

In the morning, he’s gone, but she can still see the shape of him imprinted on what used to be his side of the bed. She curls up in the space he left behind.

\---

When she meets up with Nick and Reagan the next day for lunch, they seem on good terms again, so she thinks they just had a fight over something petty and unimportant, something couples fight about in bed late at night that was entirely easy to patch up again in the morning. 


	5. The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

After that night, things are uneventful. Nick is himself around her, the guy he’s always been. Wrapped up in his latest obsession with writing. Funny and charming when they hang out alone together. Her friend. 

Neither of them brings up what could have happened that night. The fact is nothing happened. He was upset after a fight with his girlfriend. He came to her motel room because he didn’t know anyone else in the city. They watched bad TV together. It got late, and they fell asleep in her bed. There was no moral ambiguity in those facts. _Nothing happened._ That’s probably the way Nick saw it, too. He hadn’t been looking for anything from her that night; he just needed a place to crash. Anything else had all been in her head, the result of residual one-sided feelings from her and an overactive imagination.

\---

She gradually tries to spend less and less time alone with Nick. It’s painful, but she knows it’s for the best. Nick isn’t going to get over his homesickness by clinging on to her, and she isn’t going to change the way her heart feels by continuing to be around him crowding into his space. 

There’s a stretch where she doesn’t see him at all. Nick texts her every so often to invite her to come out and join him and Reagan on whatever couple’s excursion they have planned, but she thinks it’s good for them to spend couple time alone together without her, especially since she’s been taking up so much of Nick’s time lately. Nick would never say it, but she thinks he mainly invites her to be polite since she’s in New Orleans by herself, when both he and Reagan would much rather spend most of their time alone together, especially since Reagan doesn’t seem to have much time to spend on her personal life as it is.

\---

She goes sightseeing alone and thinks Nick was right. It’s not as much fun on your own. 

She sits in the Botanical Garden and thinks about starting her life again when she gets back to LA. It makes her feel even more lonely than sitting here by herself. She could go find herself another boyfriend, another man, but it wouldn’t be him. How can someone who makes her feel so loved, also make her hurt this deeply? She lets herself cry over him for one afternoon, before pushing the feelings back down again. It’s her secret to keep because Nick is happy without her.


	6. After Hours

Her lonely days turn into lonely insomnia-fueled nights. One night, while she is tossing and turning in bed trying to go to sleep, she gets a spontaneous text from Nick.

_U up?_

She pauses for a long while considering those words. She thinks she should just leave it alone, pretend she’s actually sleeping, but then he’s calling her. She worries that maybe something is really wrong, so she answers.

“Nick? What’s wrong?”

“Sorry for calling so late, Jess. Nothing’s wrong. I just couldn’t sleep.”

It sounds like he’s trying to be quiet. “Why are you whispering?”

“Reagan’s asleep. I’m trying not to wake her up.” He pauses. “You want to come out and have a drink with me, Jess?”

She should tell him no. It’s late, a little after midnight. This isn’t her innocently meeting him at some tourist trap or museum in the middle of the day. This is her alone with him drinking in a dark corner of some bar while his girlfriend is asleep back in their hotel room, unknowing and unaware. This is her continuing to cross the boundaries of their friendship when she knows it’s wrong. _He has a girlfriend,_ she scolds herself. That really should be the end of it. 

But…she still feels his presence waiting for her on the other end of the line, and there’s something there in his voice that tugs at her heart.  
_I need you._ He doesn’t say the words, but that’s what she hears, and she finds herself saying yes to him, in spite of everything else. 

“Text me the address.”

\---

She meets him at a bar downtown. It’s a nondescript out-of-the-way place, not one of the popular places packed full of drunk tourists, but cozy and lived in. The bar isn't sleek and trendy but well worn, a place with a sense of history where all the bartenders have an encyclopedic knowledge of obscure drinks and aren't opposed to pouring extra heavy for the regulars. Leave it up to Nick to find the best dive bar in New Orleans.

He lights up when he sees her. “Hey, stranger.”

He’s already two drinks in. He gets the bartender to make her a gin fizz, and he orders another beer to chase down his Sazerac. Which version of Drunk Nick is he tonight? Not Sloppy Drunk Nick but Nick, the Drunk Philosopher. He tells her captivating stories about the folklore of New Orleans, everything he knows about the voodoo queens and ghosts that haunt the Bayou. He tells her his funny duck-out-of-water stories about stumbling down the confusing side streets of the city his first week here and trying to communicate with the locals in his broken Creole. The conversation flows freely, along with the alcohol. It’s just another night for them sitting at the bar in the Big Easy. _She was being silly, wasn’t she? Typical Jessica Day._ She relaxes slightly and orders herself a glass of pink wine.

“How’s Reagan?” she asks casually. It feels like the thing she should ask.

The lighthearted mood shifts slightly. Nick hesitates. “Reagan is…” She can see him trying to grasp for the right words. “Reagan,” he settles on, unable to find quite the right words to describe her. “She’s fine. We’re doing great.” It’s hardly a glowing review of their relationship, and Nick’s enthusiasm seems muted, but she doesn’t want to pry. Nick still doesn’t seem to want to talk about his relationship with Reagan, not with her at least. There is an uncomfortable lull in the conversation between them. She knows Nick can be an intensely private person at times and hopes she didn't offend him by trying to dig into his personal life. She wishes she could take back her words. She wants to go back to how they were just a few short minutes ago. The vibe between them feels strained now, and the expression on Nick's face is considerably more serious. She knows now he didn’t just ask her out for small talk. He seems to have something on his mind, but he needed time to work up to it.

She sees him swallow hard before he turns to her and asks, “Why did you come to New Orleans, Jess?” 

And there it is. The elephant in the room. The thing that neither of them has talked about the entire time she’s been here. 

She can’t help apologizing like she did something wrong. Because didn’t she do something wrong? “I’m sorry, Nick. I know I shouldn’t have come—” 

“Don’t…Don’t apologize for that, Jess. I’m not mad. I’m glad you came. I was just curious.”

“Are you and Reagan fighting because of me? I ruined your whole trip. I know I should have asked you first. I wasn’t thinking. You said you were homesick, and everyone else was on vacation, and…I guess, I wanted to go on vacation somewhere too. You two were trying to be a couple, and you’ve just been stuck with me as your weird third wheel this whole time. She’s mad at you because you’ve been trying to be my friend, and we’ve been spending all this time together when you should be spending it with her. You can tell her it’s my fault. I’ll apologize to her tomorrow in person. I should have done that the first day I was here. I’ll—”

He cuts her off. “Reagan thinks I’m still in love with you,” he says bluntly.

He doesn’t look at her. His fingers nervously tear at the label of his beer bottle. He’s a couple drinks in but not full-on drunk, just drunk enough to be honest. He forces himself to make eye contact with her.

“We’re just friends, though. Right, Jess?” There’s an edge of anxious desperation to his voice. He’s searching her eyes for something. 

She feels her heart catch in her throat. It’s an opening to tell him the truth. She wants to tell him. She really does. But he looks terrified of that possibility, of opening that door again. He’s afraid of backsliding, she thinks. He’s not someone who wants to look at the past. He’s someone who knows there is nothing good down that road. _Only forward, never back._ This isn’t the movies where she tells him how she feels, and they end up together. He’s with Reagan now. He’s trying to make it work, and she has to let him.

“Yeah, Nick. We’re just friends,” she says with finality. She gulps down the rest of her wine and gestures to the bartender for another. “I mean…you came all this way for Reagan. You’re all grown up now, being a responsible adult and getting your life together. You never did that for me.”

He looks at her funny when she says that. “You think I didn’t try for you, Jess?” he asks in a sad, hurt tone.

She lays a comforting hand on his arm. “That’s not what I’m saying, Nick. You just couldn’t make grown-up moves for me. We weren’t good together. It happens. Some people aren’t meant to be.”

He looks like he wants to argue with her about that, but he swallows it. Instead, he says, “I think about it though, Jess…I think about it all the time. Why we didn’t work out. What our lives would have been like if we didn’t break up. I know I probably shouldn’t—we did break up. It’s been over three years. But I just can’t help it.”

“That’s not love though, Nick. That’s just nostalgia. People remember all the good stuff and forget all the bad stuff. It’s just easier to look at your life through rose-colored glasses.”

“There was a lot of good stuff, though,” he mutters under his breath, but she still hears.

 _Not enough,_ she thinks sadly. _Not enough to keep us together._ They can’t even go back to how they were earlier in the evening, pretending they’re still just friends instead of what they really are: exes. They’re sitting here tearing open scar tissue that is better left unopened. The past is the past. It’s over between them. They both have to accept that. 

“You should go back to Reagan, Nick. I should go home.”

He doesn’t disagree with her this time. He just gives her a sad nod of acknowledgment, looking away from her. She pays her portion of the tab and leaves him sitting at the bar. She goes back to her motel room, alone. 


	7. Leaving on a Jet Plane

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is a reference to the John Denver song ["Leaving On A Jet Plane."](https://youtu.be/19ToC8pQrCY)

Nick insists on driving her to the airport on her last morning in New Orleans. 

She lets him because she knows they both need to say goodbye.

They are quiet on the drive there. They haven’t really spoken or seen each other since the night at the bar. And really what is there left to say, except that? _Goodbye._ No more pretending. _Clean break,_ like they had both already agreed to…before New Orleans, before Sam, before everything became complicated and confusing again.

Too soon, they arrive at the airport. Nick finds a spot to park in the short-term lot. For a few breaths, she sits there with him in silence. She looks out the window at the chaotic scene. She can see all the people milling about in front of the airport, rushing to catch their flights. She can see planes taking off in the near distance. She should go, but she lingers there with him sitting in the rental car in the airport parking lot. She doesn’t look at him, and he doesn’t look at her, both of them waiting for the other person to break, to say the words to end whatever this is still between them. She knows she has to be the one to do it.

She opts for casual. “I hope you enjoy the rest of your time here in New Orleans, Nick. I’ll see you in two months.” Her voice is cheery and upbeat, belying her somber mood. She hopes she sounds sincere. She really does want him to be happy. He should have that joyful summer of romance he envisioned when he said yes to Reagan.

He looks like he wants to say something to her, but he just pastes on a smile and says, “See ya, Jess.”

She gets out of the car with her suitcase and walks briskly away from him. She doesn’t look back, so he won’t see that she’s crying. She knows when he gets back to the loft in two months, everything will be ruined. She should have just stayed home. She had been selfish. She tried to insert herself into Nick’s life again when he didn’t even need her here. Reagan is good for him. Reagan could be Nick’s one true shot at happiness, and she just tainted their relationship by coming here. And because she had been selfish, she doesn’t even get him as her friend anymore. She doesn’t deserve to. 

But what kind of goodbye was that? They were supposed to be friends, _best friends,_ and not even a hug when they left each other. She remembers hugging him goodbye the first time they broke up, clinging to him and those shards of their broken relationship. The end had been painful, but remembering the solid, warm comfort of him around her in those final moments was probably half the reason she was able to make it through the breakup in all those days afterwards. This is worse than it was then, not being able to touch each other at all now. 

She’s almost to security when she hears someone calling out her name, and she turns around.

“Jess! Jess, wait!” She sees Nick racing across the airport towards her. When he gets to her, he pulls her into a hug, wrapping his body around her.

And then she’s hugging him goodbye. She’s grateful for that at least. She closes her eyes and breathes him in and lets all the memories of them wash over her temporarily. She doesn’t know what they will be to each other once he comes back home in two months, but she knows what he is to her now. They didn’t make it, but she doesn’t regret any of this time with him at all. If this is goodbye, at least they made it count. 

They hug for a long time in the middle of the airport while everyone else rushes around them. She knows she has to go too, but when she tries to pull away from him, Nick is the one that’s still hanging on to her, hugging her fiercely to him.

She laughs uncertainly to break the poignant mood of the moment. “You have to let me go, Nick.”

“I can’t let you go, Jess. I don’t want to.” It’s loud in the airport terminal, and his words are slightly muffled by her hair, but his voice cuts through everything else. She’s never heard him sound more serious. “Reagan was right. I am still in love with you. I was sitting outside in that car thinking, I couldn’t let you get on that plane and not tell you that.”

“Nick—” Her voice trembles, shaky with emotion.

He’s talking over her in one big rush. “I know what you’re going to say to me, Jess. And I can’t let you say it. I can’t let you say that you think we’re wrong for each other, that we aren’t good together.” 

“And Reagan…Reagan’s great, but she isn’t you, Jess. I’m so tired of fighting it, when I know I’m going to end up with you. I don’t even know how I know. I just know. And I know you told me it isn’t love, but it sure feels like love to me. And I know even if I stay here with Reagan, or if I meet someone else, I’m still coming home to you.”

“I know you need a guy with a life plan. I still don’t have one of those, but the one thing I know in the entire world is that you have to be in it.”

He can feel the weight of all the years that have passed between them since they were a couple, but he can still so clearly remember the words she said to him when the entire world was against them that made him believe in them in the first place. “I want to uncall it, Jess. Please, can we uncall it? And before you say no…don’t say no.”

He’s breathing hard and all out of words, so he has to let her say what she’s going to say. 

His eyes are closed, and he’s bracing himself for it because he knows it’s going to hurt, but he’s still glad she heard him, that he got to tell her how he felt one last time instead of keeping the words in like he has been for years. 

“I shouldn’t have let you leave, Nick.” Her tears soak his shoulder. “I don’t just mean at the wedding. I mean before when we broke up. I let you believe I didn’t love you enough. You loved me so much, and I let you believe that. I let that break us. I thought I was searching for something in all those other people I dated, but I was looking for you the entire time. And I couldn’t marry Sam. I couldn’t marry anyone else because I was still in love with you.” She whispers into his shoulder. “I’m still in love with you too.”

She feels him stiffen in surprise, but then he pulls back to look into her face. She can see the raw emotion there. His hand cups her cheek. _How could she not have seen? He was in love with her the whole time._

Then he’s kissing her in the middle of the airport. The rest of the world goes on around them, but they are the only ones that share this private space. She sees through space and time just like the first time he kissed her, all the possibilities of their lives that led them back to one another and all the possibilities of their life together spanning into the future.

When he pulls back from her, he cups her face in his hands and looks directly into her eyes. He says with conviction, “I’m coming home with you, Jess.”

\---

After that it’s all a rush of buying last-minute plane tickets and buying bare necessities at the airport stores since he doesn’t even have his suitcase with him, but it’s exhilarating at the same time. It reminds him of running off to Mexico with her that first time when the world felt perfect, shiny and new with promise. 

Before their flight, Nick finds somewhere quiet in the airport lounge to call Reagan and have the serious adult conversation he needs to have with her. Jess gives him his privacy. He squeezes her hand before she goes. _It’s not her fault; this is his decision._

Reagan picks up after two rings. "Hey, Nick. Heading back to the hotel?" 

Nick's mind runs through all the ways he can gloss over what he's about to say to Reagan, to make the betrayal hurt less for her, but he knows there is no good way to say it. He just goes with honesty. 

“I’m going home with Jess.” 

He knows this is a shitty thing he’s doing breaking up with Reagan over the phone, but he knows this is what he has to do. This isn’t him running; he just needs to go home with Jess right now, nonnegotiable. “I have about thirty minutes before I have to catch my plane, so you can yell at me now, or you can do it in person when I’m back in LA. You know where I live and all. I just need to do this now. I’m sorry.”

Reagan takes the news much more gracefully than any person should. She is so wise and cool and together, all the reasons he wanted to date her in the first place, and she should hate him for doing this to her, but she doesn’t hate him. She just wanted him to be honest with her, to be honest with himself.

“I kind of figured. I was right, wasn’t I?”

It’s a good thing Reagan likes being right a whole lot more than she liked being his girlfriend. “You were right. I’m not good at goodbyes or gratitude, but if you’re ever in LA again, drinks are on me. I mean, if you don’t hate me forever for being the worst ex-boyfriend ever and doing this to ya.”

“I don’t hate you, Nick. We gave it a try. I’m not the one for you, and you aren’t the one for me. It’s okay. You weren’t bad company for a month and a half. I’m glad you figured yourself out. I’ll mail you your stuff. Have a good life, Nick. Go home. Be happy.”

After the call ends, Nick lets out a breath and closes his eyes. _Clean break._ It wasn’t the worst breakup he's ever been through, all things considered. Jess comes back and sits down next to him. She takes his hand in hers. “Are you okay?” she asks with concern.

“I’m okay, honey.” He opens his eyes and turns to look at her. “Are you okay?”

Guilt is written into her features. “I never wanted to hurt her.”

“I know. Me neither.”

“Does this make us bad people?”

He shakes his head. “She knew. She understood. I think she knew before either of us did. I think you go through life, and you meet all the right people you’re supposed to meet at the right time in your life. I had this feeling when I met her that she was supposed to be important in my life. It was that feeling I got when I saw you that first time. I thought that meant I was supposed to be in a relationship with her. But the reason I felt that way, the reason she was right for me, was because she was always supposed to bring me back to you.”

She smiles her happy, teary smile at him. “Do you still believe in Fate, Nick?”

He smiles back at her. “I believe in love.” He leans in to kiss her again.

“Let’s go home, Jess.”

\---

They’re on the plane together, holding each other’s hands. They haven’t stopped since they were in the airport. Nick is sleeping in the window seat muttering about flying sea monkeys. She finds it endearing. She leans in to press a kiss to his cheek, and Sleeping Nick reaches over with his other arm to wrap her in a bear hug the best he can in their cramped airplane seats. It’s an awkward position for them to be in, but she doesn’t mind. She knows what it means now when he can’t bear to be apart from her, even when he’s sleeping.

Jess can see the landscape of LA pulling into focus through the wispy clouds. This is them flying back to start their real lives together. Home isn’t very far away. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was my spin on the traditional “I got off the plane for you” trope, which is a staple of many rom-coms and other romantic movies. Maybe a bit cliché, but you can’t lie and say it isn’t fun.
> 
> Nick couldn’t let Jess get on that plane and just leave because he knew it would have been over between them. It’s a nice bookend for the evolution of Nick's stance on talking about feelings. Jess taught him to own his feelings, and that was what he was thinking about sitting in the car. That made him brave enough to take the chance and tell her how he felt, even knowing there was the risk he would lose her. If he never told her, he knew he would be an old man filled with regret. He had regrets about breaking up too, but having to hide his feelings from her was probably worse. The writers seemed to think Nick needed some kind of external success to become a mature adult, but that was always secondary to Nick being emotionally courageous in that way. That was always the arc. That’s what Nick needed to do to become the man he wanted to be. 
> 
> Here's John Denver to play us out...
> 
> _So kiss me and smile for me_  
>  _Tell me that you'll wait for me_  
>  _Hold me like you'll never let me go_  
>  _'Cause I'm leavin' on a jet plane_  
>  _Don't know when I'll be back again_  
>  _Oh babe, I hate to go_
> 
> _There's so many times I've let you down_  
>  _So many times I've played around_  
>  _I tell you now, they don't mean a thing_  
>  _Every place I go, I'll think of you_  
>  _Every song I sing, I'll sing for you_  
>  _When I come back, I'll bring your wedding ring…_


End file.
